Lobster Farci
1 cup chopped lobster meat Yolks 2 "hard-boiled" eggs 1/2 tablespoon chopped parsley 1 cup White Sauce I Slight grating nutmeg 1/3 cup buttered crumbs Salt
An ingredient list in the Boston Cooking School shorthand of its day, where the method for a farci was assumed: bind the meat with sauce, return it to the shells or ramekins, crumb the top and brown it. The points below fill in what the list takes for granted.
- What "farci" means hereFarci is simply French for stuffed. The mixture is meant to go back into the cleaned half-shells of the lobster, or into small ramekins if you are working from picked meat.
- White Sauce IThe recipe cross-references a sauce given elsewhere in the book; in books of this period a first or thin/medium white sauce is usually something on the order of 1 to 2 tablespoons butter, the same of flour, and 1 cup milk, cooked until it coats a spoon. Make it on the thick side here, since the lobster and egg will loosen it.
- How much lobsterOne cup of chopped meat is roughly what a single 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 lb hard-shell lobster yields. Two shells will hold the finished mixture comfortably.
- The egg yolksPress the cooked yolks through a sieve rather than chopping them; they melt into the sauce and thicken it slightly. The whites are not used, so save them for something else.
- Buttered crumbsOne-third cup of dry crumbs tossed with melted butter; the usual period proportion is about 2 tablespoons butter to a cup of crumbs, so roughly 2 teaspoons here. Dry crumbs rather than fresh soft ones brown better.
- Oven and timeThe list gives no baking directions; a hot oven of roughly 400F for 10 to 15 minutes is a reasonable modern reading, enough to brown the crumbs and heat the filling through. The lobster is already cooked, so extended baking only toughens it.
- SeasoningNo quantity is given for the salt, as was common in lists of this kind; season to taste. The nutmeg should stay at a bare grating; more of it will bury the lobster.
- YieldTwo generous servings as a main course, or four as a first course in small ramekins.
Farci dishes -- meat, fish or vegetables minced, bound with a sauce and returned to their own shell or skin -- entered American home cooking largely through the French-influenced cookery schools of the late nineteenth century, and by 1900 lobster farci appears in books of this kind alongside lobster Newburg and lobster cutlets. The nutmeg suggests that lineage: a grating of it in a white sauce is a habit inherited from classic bechamel. Lobster had by then risen considerably in status on the American coast, from an abundant and cheap food to an expensive delicacy shipped inland by rail and sold in cans; the often-repeated stories of it being fed to prisoners and indentured servants in early New England are traditional and poorly documented. Recipes that stretch one cup of picked meat with a cup of sauce and a crumb crust are consistent with that shift.